One of the interesting features of the Chakmas living alongwith many other castes and tribes of the Northeast India is that they have their own script, called as Ojhapath (or Aaojapath).
Beside Meitei script of Manipur, Assamese script of Assam, Khampti script of Arunachal Pradesh, Bhutia script (Tibetan) and Nepali script of Sikkim and Kokborok script of Tripura, the Chakmas also have their own script. Some of the Chakma letters resemble in one or the other way with the scripts used in neighbouring Asian countries Myanmar and Laos.
Historically, the script was mostly used to write folk music, epic poems, Buddhist teachings and for documenting traditional medicinal practices.
For digital usage, “Alaam” font was released on 25th May 2012, which is designed according to “Chakma Primer”. It is an ASCII font, copyrighted by Khudronreegostir Sanskritik Institute of Rangamati.
Another Chakma font “RibengUni” (Unicode) was released by Ribeng IT Solution Ltd on 6th October 2012 under SIL's Open Font License. It was designed by Bivuti Chakma (Suz Moriz) & Jyoti Chakma (of CHT) with assistance from Jan Żurawski from Poland.
(This article is incomplete. It will be updated soon with detailed explanation about the features and usages of the Chakma dialects, scripts and fonts.)
Beside Meitei script of Manipur, Assamese script of Assam, Khampti script of Arunachal Pradesh, Bhutia script (Tibetan) and Nepali script of Sikkim and Kokborok script of Tripura, the Chakmas also have their own script. Some of the Chakma letters resemble in one or the other way with the scripts used in neighbouring Asian countries Myanmar and Laos.
Historically, the script was mostly used to write folk music, epic poems, Buddhist teachings and for documenting traditional medicinal practices.
For digital usage, “Alaam” font was released on 25th May 2012, which is designed according to “Chakma Primer”. It is an ASCII font, copyrighted by Khudronreegostir Sanskritik Institute of Rangamati.
Another Chakma font “RibengUni” (Unicode) was released by Ribeng IT Solution Ltd on 6th October 2012 under SIL's Open Font License. It was designed by Bivuti Chakma (Suz Moriz) & Jyoti Chakma (of CHT) with assistance from Jan Żurawski from Poland.
(This article is incomplete. It will be updated soon with detailed explanation about the features and usages of the Chakma dialects, scripts and fonts.)
